Sacred Heart College students need help to Passion Your Purpose

SACRED Heart College students are trying to raise $20,000 to enable the start-up of an internationally recognised app to tackle cyber-bullying and overcome social anxiety by creating positive connections for teenagers.

Four 15-year-old students – Alexandra Groves, Jack Bennett, Anthony Bulich and Tyler Williams – from the Sorrento school designed the Passion Your Purpose app to address mental health for teenage students that face serious issues impacting their health, wellbeing, education and social cohesion.

It would connect young people with shared interests, with users required to fill out a quiz to reveal a list of passions before being directed to recommended groups nearby, which are overseen by a youth worker to encourage positive behaviours.

Mr Williams said mental health had impacted him and his school mates and the app could be a vital solution to help bring students and like-minded people together to tackle social anxiety.

“This app helps students to reach out to others without the pressure of a making a call to a person on a phone, or walking into a psychologist’s office, where they could be embarrassed or discovered,” he said.

“Kids with mental health problems don’t have someone to reach out to because they feel excluded and it’s harder to reach out to support groups, so if someone reaches out to them on this app, it could make a big difference to their health and wellbeing and feel socially included.”

Beyond Blue chief executive Georgie Harman said she loved it when young people came up with “solutions that work for them”.

“Young Australians tell us that mental health is the number one issue for them,” she said.

“These are the leaders of the future.”

The app is in the development phase, with students calling on the public to help with funding to make it operational.